


bravado

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Mentions of Poe Dameron Ongoing, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-03-26 06:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13852326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: It burned that his mother chose him, a beautiful man with clarity of purpose and a shield of sarcasm with which to protect himself.It burned even more that he understood why she’d done it.





	bravado

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Thymesis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thymesis/gifts).



Kylo tightened his fists at his sides, the leather of his gloves creaking as rage flashed, hot as lightning, through every inch of him. The Force crackled around him, inside of him, and Phasma, dull to the point of total insensitivity to the Force, could not sense the danger she found herself in. No, she stood, impassive, before him, her armor gleaming, with a demand in her mouth that she had no right to issue. She was not his captain; she could not order him about like one of her and Hux’s incompetent stormtroopers. “Why is it,” he said, deceptively light, “that I’m suddenly being tasked with cleaning up your messes?”

“The Supreme Leader requires that we find Lor San Tekka,” she answered, cool and even. There was the slightest hint of hesitation in her tone, like she couldn’t quite bring herself to admit that she’d been wrong. Kylo was not above the slightest hint of satisfaction. Just her being here implied so much.

“And you have failed.” He paused, letting it sink in for her. “Yet again. So you come to me.”

“The Supreme Leader believes—”

“What do you believe?”

Her helmet glimmered as she canted her head just so. She, however, didn’t speak.

“Send me everything you have,” he said, not quite realizing at the moment the ramifications of his request. “I’ll do what you and Agent Terex could not. I’ll get that map, Lor San Tekka, and Poe Dameron.”

*

“I had no idea we had the best pilot in the Resistance on board,” he said, though it was a lie. “Comfortable?” In fact, he knew a great deal more than that, enough to fill his mind with whispers. This was Poe Dameron in the flesh and for one ridiculous, crystalline moment, he understood why Terex had betrayed every single member of the First Order to his mother’s foolish rebellion rather than stay the course.

He’d read every single report Terex had filed, back before he’d gone rogue and made this merry kriffing chase a possibility rather than ensuring the First Order’s success; through written word, he’d followed every trail that both Terex and Poe had traversed for the better part of a year. He’d spent days at it, weeks, and by the end, he knew far too much about both of them.

Terex could find himself murdered on Nar Shaddaa by another worthless criminal for all that Kylo cared. It turned out Terex’s petty vanities and power plays didn’t interest him. He wouldn’t get Kylo what he wanted. Hux might have determined to see him hanged for his treasons, but if he wanted it done, he could waste his own resources locating him.

Poe though?

Poe was something special.

“Not really,” Poe answered, brash and arrogant and probably the stupidest man Kylo had ever had the pleasure of meeting in a very long time. Only a man like him, after all, would talk back to a man like Kylo Ren.

No wonder his mother had promoted him so far above his station. She always did have a soft spot for rude, reckless men. Men like his father. Men, apparently, like Poe.

Men who were nothing at all like her own son. The only thing Ben Solo shared with his father was weakness, but that was where the similarities ended and that alone wasn’t enough to keep her from sending him away.

He’d played with calligraphy sets as a boy, in his room, alone; Poe had probably been born in the cockpit of a starfighter, or close enough to it that it hardly mattered. He had that rakish quality about him.

And he was more like his mother than he ever wanted to be in this one regard: a part of him liked that about Poe, admired him even.

Found it distracting in ways that hadn’t distracted him in a long time.

He almost didn’t recognize his flush of arousal for what it was. Still, it was easily ignored for the moment; he was a lot of things, but he preferred his partners willing.

There were more important goals at stake here regardless.

The map to Luke Skywalker was worth more than the time it would take to make Poe see things from his perspective.

“I’m impressed,” he admitted finally, a concession he would have made for no one else. “No one has been able to get out of you what you did with the map.”

Poe blinked, slow and exhausted, perhaps dizzy from the wound that stretched across his temple. Kylo wanted to reach out and wipe the blood away. He wanted to make Poe bleed even more.

It burned that his mother chose him, a beautiful man with clarity of purpose and a shield of sarcasm with which to protect himself.

It burned even more that he understood why she’d done it. In her position, he would have done the same. Who wouldn’t have wanted someone like Poe at their side, shaped in their image? He wasn’t a Force adept, but the Light of righteousness shone in him regardless.

Intoxicating. Dangerous. Perhaps in this one way, he was like both mother and father: they, too, enjoyed burning themselves on the flames of what they believed to be good and just.

Maybe once this was over, he’d find a way to convince Poe, forge him into something greater than the jumped-up moon jockey his mother had inspired him to become. He wouldn’t be leaving the _Finalizer_ anytime soon; there would be plenty of time once—

Kylo lifted his hand. Stepped closer and closer until they were nearly close enough to kiss. He itched to remove his glove, to touch Poe’s sweat-soaked skin and feel each blemish beneath his palm.

Kylo finally asked the question. The only question that he could allow himself to contemplate now.

Poe answered and in exactly the way Kylo had hoped he would. “The Resistance will not be intimidated by you.”

 _Oh,_ Kylo thought, smiling beneath his mask, _if only that were so._


End file.
